CAT 2 courses (winter quarter, six units) are writing intensive, focusing on argumentation, revision, and writing as process by examining case studies of culture, art, and technology interacting in the present moment. In CAT 2 writing courses, students learn about how different kinds of arguments are constructed, how visual arguments persuade, and why some parts of an argument might not be visible or open to debate.

The Process of Music: A Study of Listening, Composing, and Performing

This course examines how we actively negotiate music as listeners and musicians by examining music’s layers of process and procedure. We will consider how music is learned, performed, composed, recorded, and heard in examples including jazz (Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew), hip-hop (J-Dilla’sDonuts), rock (The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields” and Radioheads’ In Rainbows), and art-music (Terry Riley’s In C). We will give special attention to the technologies that have transformed musical processes, ranging from Auto-tune to YouTube. Section work will draw parallels between musical processes and rhetorical composition. You will describe the layers and procedures of musical activity through written and graphical descriptions. You will also document your own learning experience, by learning a simple instrument, song, or instrumental technique using online media. A final essay project will argue for or against one of the processes we examine in the course. Our goals in the course are multifaceted: developing the skills to document process, evaluating and critiquing process, and considering music as linked activities rather than

CAT 2 - Course Information TBD

“A House is (Not) a Home:” ExaminingRace, Gender, and Technology at Home

This CAT2 course will examine the idea of the American home, family, and domesticity as these concepts and ideologies developed in and around the television. Not only was television physically integrated into the new postwar domestic space (literally built into the structure of suburban homes) but its programming defined new--white, middle class, and suburban--ideas of the home and asserted raced and gendered roles within that space. We will think of television as an active site (vs the boob tube or “vast wasteland”) re-shaping the home, inspiring new technologies, and even familial relations (like the advent of the TV dinner). In many ways this is a television history class, but we will also consider contemporary television families and how we watch television now--from appointment viewing in primetime to Netflix binging on our computers. In tracking the evolution of domestic tropes (like the housewife or the maid), the technology itself, and how domestic space is articulated as raced and gendered, we will ask questions about what home and television meant and continue to mean as a function of Americanness. We will use these explorations to hone our writing and critical thinking skills, perform close readings, and learn how to make and support ethical arguments. We will read a combination of academic and popular press articles and watch a lot of television and hopefully these texts will serve as inspiration and models for your course projects, which might include essays; short writing assignments; and a video essay.